Real-time and adaptive data mining

ABSTRACT

A method of analyzing data is presented. The method includes generating a query based on a topic of interest, expanding search terms of the query, executing the query on one or more data sources, monitoring a specific data source selected from the one or more data sources. The monitoring is performed to monitor for matches to the query.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/928,313, entitled “REAL-TIME AND ADAPTIVE DATA MINING,”filed on Jun. 26, 2013, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,229,977, which claims thebenefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 61/679,024 entitled “LOSS PREVENTION SERVICES PLATFORM BASED ONMACHINE LEARNING,” filed on Aug. 2, 2012, the disclosures of which areexpressly incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

BACKGROUND

Field

Aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to data mining, andmore particularly to providing a real-time data mining platform andinteractive feedback platform.

Background

The Internet provides and generates large amounts of data on a dailybasis. The data may be monitored from data sources, such as, but notlimited to, social media, web feeds, customer feedback, internal companydatabases, and proprietary data silos. With the proper tools, the dataextracted from the data sources may be used to provide analysis forvarious topics. For example, the extracted data may indicate patternsfor domestic unrest or a customer's habits/patterns. More specifically,as an example, the extracted data may yield a consumers financialprofile, retail history, social influences, and expressed interests.

Typical search engines are not designed for analyzing multiple datapoints in real time. Furthermore, the query of a search engine islimited to the exact search term. Moreover, a typical search engine islimited to querying indexed web sites. That is, search engines aretypically limited to searching structured data sources. By someaccounts, nearly seventy percent of web pages are not indexed by searchengines. The non-indexed web pages may be, for example, proprietary datasilos, web sites behind firewalls, and/or comment sections on a webpage. Accordingly, the information obtained via search engines islimited and is not desirable for real-time data analysis that isspecified for automated data extraction.

Thus, as the demand for real-time information continues to increase,there exists a need for further improvements in data mining and websearching technologies. Preferably, these improvements should beapplicable to all real-time data extraction technologies and the digitalsystems that employ these technologies.

This has outlined, rather broadly, the features and technical advantagesof the present disclosure in order that the detailed description thatfollows may be better understood. Additional features and advantages ofthe disclosure will be described below. It should be appreciated bythose skilled in the art that this disclosure may be readily utilized asa basis for modifying or designing other structures for carrying out thesame purposes of the present disclosure. It should also be realized bythose skilled in the art that such equivalent constructions do notdepart from the teachings of the disclosure as set forth in the appendedclaims. The novel features, which are believed to be characteristic ofthe disclosure, both as to its organization and method of operation,together with further objects and advantages, will be better understoodfrom the following description when considered in connection with theaccompanying figures. It is to be expressly understood, however, thateach of the figures is provided for the purpose of illustration anddescription only and is not intended as a definition of the limits ofthe present disclosure.

SUMMARY

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a method of analyzingdata is presented. The method includes generating a query based on atopic of interest. The method also includes expanding search terms ofthe query. The method further includes executing the query on one ormore data sources. The method still further includes monitoring aspecific data source selected from the one or more data sources. Themonitoring is performed to monitor for matches to the query.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, an apparatus foranalyzing data is presented. The apparatus includes a memory unit and aprocessor(s) coupled to the memory unit. The processor(s) is configuredto generate a query based on a topic of interest. The processor(s) isalso configured to expand search terms of the query. The processor(s) isfurther configured to execute the query on one or more data sources. Theprocessor(s) is still further configured to monitor a specific datasource selected from the one or more data sources. The monitoring isperformed to monitor for matches to the query.

In yet another aspect of the present disclosure, a computer programproduct for data analysis having a non-transitory computer-readablemedium is disclosed. The computer readable medium has non-transitoryprogram code recorded thereon which, when executed by the processor(s),causes the processor(s) to perform operations of generating a querybased on a topic of interest. The program code also causes theprocessor(s) to expand search terms of the query. The program codefurther causes the processor(s) to execute the query on one or more datasources. The program code still further causes the processor(s) tomonitor a specific data source selected from the one or more datasources. The monitoring is performed to monitor for matches to thequery.

Additional features and advantages of the disclosure will be describedbelow. It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that thisdisclosure may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designingother structures for carrying out the same purposes of the presentdisclosure. It should also be realized by those skilled in the art thatsuch equivalent constructions do not depart from the teachings of thedisclosure as set forth in the appended claims. The novel features,which are believed to be characteristic of the disclosure, both as toits organization and method of operation, together with further objectsand advantages, will be better understood from the following descriptionwhen considered in connection with the accompanying figures. It is to beexpressly understood, however, that each of the figures is provided forthe purpose of illustration and description only and is not intended asa definition of the limits of the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features, nature, and advantages of the present disclosure willbecome more apparent from the detailed description set forth below whentaken in conjunction with the drawings in which like referencecharacters identify correspondingly throughout.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a call flow for a data mining systemaccording to an aspect of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram for a data mining system according to anaspect of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 illustrates various data visualization schemes according toaspects of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 4-8 are block diagrams for a data mining system according toaspects of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 illustrates a hierarchy of security rights according to an aspectof the present disclosure.

FIGS. 10A and 10B illustrate typical sequential data extraction schemes.

FIG. 10C illustrates a parallel data extraction scheme according to anaspect of the present disclosure.

FIGS. 11 and 12 illustrate examples of data extraction and analysisaccording to an aspect of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The detailed description set forth below, in connection with theappended drawings, is intended as a description of variousconfigurations and is not intended to represent the only configurationsin which the concepts described herein may be practiced. The detaileddescription includes specific details for the purpose of providing athorough understanding of the various concepts. However, it will beapparent to those skilled in the art that these concepts may bepracticed without these specific details. In some instances, well-knownstructures and components are shown in block diagram form in order toavoid obscuring such concepts.

Aspects of the data mining systems are presented with reference tovarious apparatus and methods. These apparatus and methods are describedin the following detailed description and illustrated in theaccompanying drawings by various blocks, modules, components, circuits,steps, processes, algorithms, etc. (collectively referred to as“elements”). These elements may be implemented using electronichardware, computer software, or any combination thereof. Whether suchelements are implemented as hardware or software depends upon theparticular application and design constraints imposed on the overallsystem.

By way of example, an element, or any portion of an element, or anycombination of elements may be implemented with a “processing system”that includes one or more processors. Examples of processors includemicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs),field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic devices(PLDs), state machines, gated logic, discrete hardware circuits, andother suitable hardware configured to perform the various functionalitydescribed throughout this disclosure. One or more processors in theprocessing system may execute software. Software shall be construedbroadly to mean instructions, instruction sets, code, code segments,program code, programs, subprograms, software modules, applications,software applications, software packages, routines, subroutines,objects, executables, threads of execution, procedures, functions, etc.,whether referred to as software, firmware, middleware, microcode,hardware description language, or otherwise.

Accordingly, in one or more exemplary embodiments, the functionsdescribed may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or anycombination thereof. If implemented in software, the functions may bestored on or encoded as one or more instructions or code on anon-transitory computer-readable medium. Computer-readable mediaincludes computer storage media. Storage media may be any availablemedia that can be accessed by a computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM,CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carryor store desired program code in the form of instructions or datastructures and that can be accessed by a computer. Disk and disc, asused herein, includes compact disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc,digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk and Blu-ray disc where disksusually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce dataoptically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also be includedwithin the scope of computer-readable media.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a call flow for a data mining system100 according to an aspect of the present disclosure. At block 102 aquery is generated. The query may be a natural language query generatedby a user. Alternatively, the query generation may be automated from aquery generator. The query generator may be based on artificialintelligence or a similar system.

At block 104 the query is expanded. In one configuration, the searchterms of the query are expanded based on search lexicons. For example,the lexicons may be applied to expand the search using misspellings andderivations of the topic of interest/sub-topics. The lexicon may begenerated based on user input and/or may be generated based on automaticword association, such as synonym/antonym trees and lexicons of positiveand/or negative modifiers. The expansion of the query at block 104 maybe performed by a user and/or may be automated.

At block 106, the query is executed. The query may be executed onopen-source data and proprietary data. Specifically, in oneconfiguration, the query may be limited to specific data sources (e.g.,proprietary data sources and open-source data sources). In anotherconfiguration, the query searches all available data sources. In yetanother configuration, the initial pass of the query is limited toopen-source data sources.

Open-source data refers to publicly available data, such as dataavailable via Wikipedia or the CIA fact book, for example. Sources thatare indexed by search engines are also considered open-source data.Open-source data may also refer to data that is not proprietary butstill not indexed by a search engine. For example, some sources, such asa blog, may include a comments section. The comments may be updated inreal time and are typically not indexed by a search engine. Thus,because the comments are not indexed by a search engine, the contents ofthe comments are not available when conducting a search. Still, theinformation in the comments is publically available to anyone thatvisits a particular source. Therefore, the comments section, or anyother non-indexed source may be considered open-source data.

Proprietary data is data that may not be searchable via a search enginebecause the proprietary data is not publically available. This mayinclude classified databases, data behind a firewall, or data that isavailable via a paid subscription, such as Lexis.

At block 108 the results of the query are reviewed. If the results aresatisfactory, specific data sources may be selected to be monitored. Ifthe results are not satisfactory, the query may be expanded and/orrefined at block 104. The refinement of the query may be refined basedon data sources selected at block 108. At block 110 the selected datasources are monitored. The monitoring may be performed by dataextractors that monitor changes to a data source in real-time. Wheninformation at the data sources is updated or located to match the queryterms, a data extractor extracts the data to be analyzed at block 112.In one configuration, a quality control analysis may also be performedon the extracted data (not shown). After analyzing the data, theextracted data may be visualized at block 114.

Additionally, after the data has been analyzed, at block 116, acommunication channel may be established with specific individualsand/or other users based on the analyzed data. For example, if the dataanalysis reveals that a customer may be planning a trip to anothercountry, the data mining system 100 may engage the customer to discusscell phone data roaming plans and/or other services that may be desiredby a customer that is traveling to another country. Furthermore, atblock 118, customers and/or users may provide feedback. That is, thecustomers may provide feedback to the system via a pre-definedcommunication channel, such as a message board, phone, SMS, or email.The feedback is analyzed at block 112 to determine customer sentiment.Furthermore, in addition to or separate from the open forum, thefeedback may also be generated based on the communication channelestablished at block 116.

In another configuration, the communication channel of block 116 may beestablished after the extracted data has been visualized at block 114.It should be noted, the communication channel of block 116 and thevisualization of block 114 may be established in parallel orindependently. Furthermore, in one configuration, the feedback receivedat block 118 may be visualized in block 114.

FIG. 2 illustrates a data mining system 200 according to an aspect ofthe present disclosure. Those of skill would further appreciate that thevarious illustrative modules of FIG. 2 may be implemented as electronichardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearlyillustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, variousillustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have beendescribed above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether suchfunctionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon theparticular application and design constraints imposed on the overallsystem. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality invarying ways for each particular application, but such implementationdecisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from thescope of the present disclosure.

The data mining system 200 may include a query module 202 for generatinga query. As discussed above, in one configuration, a query is generatedfor searching specific data sources. In one configuration, the query isa natural language query. For example, the natural language query may be“I want to know the sentiment of wireless phone customers.” The queryrepresents a topic of interest (TOI), for example, the topic of interestmay be a person, such as Michael Jackson, an event, such as the ArabSpring, a service, such as wireless phone, and/or any otherinformational element that may be queried.

Additionally, the data sources may include websites, private databases,public databases, and/or any data source that may be electronicallyaccessed. Furthermore, the query may further specify the parties thathold the opinion, such as the author of the content. Thus, in oneconfiguration, the query may specify the sources of the data, such asURLs, websites of specific countries, and/or internal/external datasilos. Furthermore, the query may further specify the author of thespecified data sources, such as, main stream media, bloggers, usercomments, and/or social media.

Furthermore, in one configuration, the query may be specified for aspecific time frame. The time frame may be a specific time frame of thepast, a time frame of the future, or a specific interval. For example,the query may only apply to events that occurred in the summer of 2012.As another example, the query may be generated to run in three monthsfrom the date of origin for the query.

In one configuration, after generating the query, open-source data ismined using the topic of interest and sub-topics. Sub-topics refer totopics related to the topic of interest. For example, for the query “Iwant to know the sentiment of wireless phone customers,” the topic ofinterest may be a specific wireless provider and/or “wireless phonecustomers.” Furthermore, in the present example, the sub-topics may be“iPhone customers” and “wireless customers.” The open-source data refersto data that is generally available to the public. For example, datathat is not deemed classified by a sovereign entity may be one source ofopen-source data. Open-source data may also include, but is not limitedto, data available via a website, a data base, and/or a really simplesyndication (RSS) feed.

After mining the open-source data using the topic of interest andsub-topics, the query parameters (e.g., search parameters) may beexpanded and/or further processed. That is, during the initial querygeneration, the user defines the scope of the query. Specifically, theuser determines, to the best of their ability, the topics of interestand their sub-topics. After the query is executed, the user may findunintended search results. Some of the unintended search results may befalse positives, while others may be relevant to the context of thequery. Consequently, the user may add additional items to the topics ofinterest and/or sub-topics based on the unintended search results.

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, the query expansionand/or further processing may be performed in the query module 202.Alternatively, the query expansion and/or further processing may beperformed in a module that is separate from the query module 202 (notshown).

In one configuration, a lexicon is applied to expand on the searchparameters. The lexicon may be applied prior to the initial searchand/or during the query expansion phase. The lexicon may also includemisspellings and derivations of the topic of interest/sub-topics. Thelexicon may be generated based on user input and/or may be generatedbased on automatic word association, such as synonym/antonym trees andlexicons of positive and/or negative modifiers.

As an example, for the query “Arab spring,” the lexicon may be appliedto expand the search to include relevant search terms such as, forexample, “revolution,” and/or “unrest.” In this example, the lexicon mayalso apply misspellings, such as “spirng,” to the search terms.

The expanded query is run on the data sources and the results areanalyzed via a results module 204. The expanded query may be performedacross meta-data for the web. Furthermore, in addition to, or separatefrom the meta-data search, in one configuration, the query is alsoperformed on the selected data sources. If the results of the query aredeemed satisfactory, data extractors are generated to monitor one ormore of the specified data sources. That is, the results of the queryare reviewed by a user, after reviewing the results, one or more of thedata sources are selected based on the accuracy of the search results.The user may also select or exclude data sources that are falsepositives. False positives refer to data sources that are not relevantto the topic of interest but are still returned because the data sourcematches the query.

For example, the topic of interest for a query may be “Arab spring” andthe results may include topics that are not related to the topic ofinterest (e.g., false positives). In this example, a search for a searchof “Arab spring” may have generated false positive search results suchas “Arab spring water” or sources related to the spring season in theMiddle East. Accordingly, sources related to these false positives maybe excluded from further iterations of the search. Moreover, sourcesspecifically related to the Arab spring uprisings may be selected by theuser based on their accuracy.

Once the specific data sources have been selected, data extractors aredeployed to monitor the specific data sources. In one configuration,when the results of the query do not yield results that are satisfactoryto the user, the query is further refined until the desired results areobtained.

The data mining system 200 may include a data extractor module 206 fordeploying data extractors. The data extractors may be referred to asextractors. Extractors refer to applications that monitor and extractdata from user-specified locations or sources of interest (e.g., datasource). That is, upon deployment, the extractors extract the data froma given source for analysis. Moreover, until terminated, the extractorsare maintained at the data source to monitor for any changes to thedata. The data changes are analyzed for a match to the key words of thequery and the data is transmitted to a data analysis module when thereis a match.

In some cases, the extractors may be bots or crawlers. The number ofextractors deployed for a data source may be dynamic. In oneconfiguration, the number of data extractors deployed for a data sourceincreases when activity on the data source increases. For example, ifextractors are deployed on a social media source to follow a currentevent, such as the elections, the number of extractors may increaseduring times when traffic for the election increases. In this example,the social media traffic may increase during flash points of a campaign,such as primaries, debates, and/or election night.

In one configuration, after a data source has been identified, thecontent of the data source is extracted based on a schedule. Forexample, a user may identify a blog as a data source. Moreover, theidentified blog may have multiple authors, still, the user may specifyto only extract posts by a first author, rather than all of the authors.The user may also set a schedule for the extractor to determine if thereis new content from the first author. The schedule may be once a week,hour, month, minute, or other time. The extractor may extract thecontent to determine if there is new content. After determining thatthere is new content, the content will transmitted to the data miningsystem. In this configuration, prior to deploying the extractor, thefirst author is identified as a topic of interest for the query. Theextractor determines the identified topics of interest in external datasources such as social media, websites, proprietary data silos, andtransmits the data to the data mining system for analysis.

Data is extracted when the extractor detects a relevant post. A relevantpost refers to data on the data source that match the query and/or keywords of the query. The extracted data may be catalogued and stored on adatabase in a data analysis module 208. The data may also be connectedto terrestrial feature markers. The data that is stored in the databasemay be transmitted to a data analytics module for sentiment analysis,indexing, and/or pattern detection. Archived data is kept for each datasource that is monitored.

In one configuration, sentiment analysis is performed on the extracteddata. The sentiment analysis may language agnostic so that analytics maybe performed in any native language, such as, for example, Arabic,Chinese, or Persian. The data analysis may also perform patterndetection, document classification, and sentiment analysis on bothstructured and unstructured datasets. Additionally, an analysis lexiconmay be applied to the sentiment analysis.

Specifically, the data analysis module 208 may further analyze the datavia linguistic patterns to determine the sentiment. That is, via theanalysis lexicon, the data is processed using both a clausal andindividual word level in English and/or the native language of the data.In one configuration, the data may be processed via successive passes.Numerical values may be assigned to denote sentiment. The sentiment mayrefer to whether the data is for or against a specific topic.

In one configuration the numerical values for the sentiment provide aspecific range of numerical value to denote the strength of thesentiment. Positive sentiment may be given a value from 1 to X, 1 beingthe lowest value for a positive sentiment while X denoting the highestsentiment value. Additionally, negative sentiment may be given a valuefrom −1 to −Y, −1 being the lowest value for a negative sentiment while−Y denoting the highest sentiment value.

The data mining system 200 may include a data visualization module 210for visualizing data. The visualized data may be based on the data thatis analyzed in the data analysis module 208. That is, in oneconfiguration, the data is visualized to display sentiment patternsacross datasets. The visualization may be temporal and/or spatial.Furthermore, the visualized data may be exported so that a user maydirectly manipulate the results.

Additionally, data mining system 200 may include a customercommunication module 212 for establishing a communication channel withcustomers and/or other users based on the analyzed data. As discussedabove, in one example, if the data analysis reveals that a customer maybe planning a trip to another country, the data mining system 200 mayengage the customer to discuss cell phone data roaming plans and/orother services that may be desired by a customer that is traveling toanother country.

Furthermore, the data mining system 200 may include a customer feedbackmodule 214 for customers and/or users to provide feedback. In oneconfiguration, the feedback is based on an open forum, such as a messageboard, for the customers to provide feedback to the system. The feedbackis analyzed at the data analysis module 208 to determine customersentiment. Furthermore, in addition to or separate from the open forum,the feedback may also be generated based on the communication channelestablished via the customer communication module 212.

In another configuration, the communication channel of the customercommunication module 212 may be established after the extracted data hasbeen visualized via the data visualization module 210. Furthermore, inone configuration, the feedback received via the customer feedbackmodule 214 may be visualized at the data visualization module 210.

FIG. 3 illustrates examples of data visualization according to aspectsof the present disclosure. In one configuration, the data visualizationis a sentiment heat map 308. That is, as shown in the sentiment heat map308, the data may be visualized to show flash points for the extracteddata. For example, if the topic of interest is “earthquakes,” the heatmap may show the areas in the world that have the most activity on thetopic of interest. The heat map is not limited to a world map and may bevisualized for any region.

In another configuration, the data visualization is a bar graph 302 forthe sentiment over time. As previously discussed, the analyzed sentimentmay be assigned a numerical value. Accordingly, the numerical value forthe sentiment may be plotted over time and visualized as shown in thebar graph 302. For example, the topic of interest may be “alternativeenergy,” and the visualization of the bar graph 302 may show a specificgroup's sentiment towards alternative forms of energy over time. Inanother configuration, the data visualization is pie chart 304 and/or aplot graph 306.

The data visualization is not limited to the schemes shown in FIG. 3,the data may be visualized via any desired scheme, such as, but notlimited to Calendars, Box Plots, Bubble Charts and variations thereof,Bullet Charts, Chord Diagrams, Cartograms, Dendograms, Network Diagrams,Streamgraphs, Bar Graphs and variations thereof, Tree diagrams, maps,and variations thereof, Line graphs, Maps, Hierarchical Edge Bundling,Scatterplots and Scatterplot Matricies, Sankey diagram, Cluster maps anddiagrams, Co-occurrence Matrices, Sunburst charts, Beziers, Word clouds,Heat maps, Timelines, Donuts and Pie charts, and/or Area charts.Moreover, the aforementioned visualizations may be based on dynamicfactors, such as, but not limited to force directed movements, timeelapse, pattern acceleration, and/or volume. More specifically, the datavisualization may be specified to show relationships, variations,anomalies, trends, patterns, pinpoints, ranges, and/or actuals in thetarget data. It should be noted that the visualization options areconfigurable by the user and may vary based on the deployment domain andgoal of the data mining system.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flowbetween different modules/means/components in an exemplary query module400 according to an aspect of the present disclosure. In oneconfiguration, the data flow between different modules/means/componentsof the query module 202 are similar to the data flow between differentmodules/means/components of the query module 400.

As shown in FIG. 4, query module 400 includes a query setup module 402for creating a query. The query setup module 402 may receive queryelements via an input 406. The query elements may specify the topic ofinterest and subtopics of interest. In one configuration, the queryelements are input by a user and/or automatically generated via a querymodule (not shown). As discussed above, the query elements may be anatural language query.

The query module 400 also includes a lexicon module 404 for applyinglexicon elements to the query elements received at the query setupmodule 402. In one configuration, the lexicon elements are applied tothe query elements at the query setup module 402. Alternatively, thequery setup module 402 may transmit the query elements to the lexiconmodule 404 so that the lexicon elements may be applied to the queryelements.

As discussed above, the lexicon elements may expand the query elements.In one configuration, for a query, the lexicon is applied to expand thesearch to include relevant search terms. The lexicon may also applymisspellings and derivations of the topic of interest/sub-topics. Thelexicon may be generated based on user input and/or may be generatedbased on automatic word association, such as synonym/antonym trees andlexicons of positive and/or negative modifiers.

The query module 400 also includes a language translator 408 fortranslating the query elements received at the query setup module 402.The language translator 408 may translate the query elements and/or theresults from English to another language, and vice versa. After applyingthe lexicon via the lexicon module 404 and translating the queryelements (if necessary), the query setup module 402 transmits the queryto the natural language processor 410. In one configuration, the naturallanguage processor 410 converts the query elements to system-understoodoperations, such as Boolean operations.

The query module 400 also includes a search module 412 that distributesthe query elements to search data sources. In one configuration, thedata sources are defined by a user and are received at the search module412 via a signal 416. Alternatively, the data sources may also bespecified in the query elements received at the search module 412.Results of the search are transmitted to the results module 414. Theresults module 414 may sort the results and display the results to theuser. In one configuration, the user may select the desired results tobe stored in memory. The user may select the desired results based onthe accuracy of the results and/or the information provided in theresults. In one configuration, the results module 414 may be separatefrom the query module 400. According to an aspect of the presentdisclosure, the selected results are transmitted to a refinement module418.

FIG. 5 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flowbetween different modules/means/components in an exemplary refinementmodule 500 according to an aspect of the present disclosure. In oneconfiguration, the refinement module 500 may be included in the querymodule 400. Still, in the present configuration, the refinement module500 is distinct from the query module 400. Nonetheless, in the presentconfiguration, the refinement module 500 uses some of the elements ofthe query module 400.

As shown in FIG. 5, the selected results from the results module 502 maybe transmitted to the lexicon updating module 504. As previouslydiscussed, at the results module 502, the user selects relevant resultsfor processing (e.g., calibration). That is, the user may judge theresults for accuracy based on the intent of the query. Based on theresults selected from the query, the data mining system may refine thelexicons and the query elements.

More specifically, a search for a topic of interest may yield a plethoraof results. Some results may be relevant to the search while others maybe false positives. Accordingly, by understanding the data sources thatare relevant to the user, the system may further refine to search termsso that a more focused search may be performed in future iterations.

Thus, the lexicon updating module 504 adjusts the lexicons based on theresults selected by the user. The lexicon updating module 504 maytransmit the results to the search module 506 to perform another searchwith the updated lexicons. Additionally, the lexicon module 508 may alsobe updated with the updated lexicons of the lexicon updating module 504.The lexicon module 508 may receive the updated lexicons from the searchmodule 506 and/or the lexicon updating module 504. The refinement module500 may run in a loop until the search results reach a desired resultsthreshold. In one configuration, once the desired results have beenreceived via the search module 506, the results module 502 transmits theresults to a data analysis module 510.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flowbetween different modules/means/components in an exemplary data analysismodule 600 according to an aspect of the present disclosure.

In one configuration, the data analysis module 600 includes apre-processing module 602 that pre-processes the received data. The datamay include results found by the extractors. That is, the data from theextractors may include data generated during a first pass of a search inaddition to data from subsequent passes. More specifically, the datafrom subsequent searches may be refined and/or expanded based on themodification of the query. Moreover, the results obtained from theextractors may be time stamped, or given a unique identifier, so thatthe data of each pass is distinguishable from data of other passes.

In some cases, the data may be in various formats. For example, dataextracted from a website may be different from data extracted from adatabase. Therefore, the preprocessing 602 may normalize the data to adesired format. After normalizing the data, the pre-processing moduletransmits the processed data to the data analysis module 604.

The data analysis module 604 may use various algorithms to analyze thenormalized data. In one configuration, the data analysis module 604includes a user generated algorithm module 606, a machine learningalgorithm module 608, a lexicon based matching module 610, and apredictive module 612. In one configuration, the user generatedalgorithm module 606 executes an algorithm specified by the user. Themachine learning algorithm module 608 may detect patterns in the dataand the patterns may be applied to future data. The lexicon basedmatching module 610 finds key words and/or indexes in the body of thedata. The predictive module 612 determines patterns in previous data andapplies a probability for an occurrence of an event based on the presentdata. In one configuration, the data analysis module 604 includes all ofthe aforementioned modules or any combination thereof. Additionally, inanother configuration, the user may configure the algorithm modules606-612 that are used by the data analysis module 604.

After the data is analyzed, the data is transmitted to a patterndetecting module 614 to detect patterns in the data. In oneconfiguration, the pattern detecting module 614 detects a spike inspecific words or phrases. For example, the pattern detecting module 614may detect a spike in the phrase “I love my iPhone 5.”

The pattern detecting module 614 may also determine any causality forthe spike. That is, the pattern detecting module 614 may determine whatcaused the spike to occur. For example, the pattern detecting module 614may determine that the spike for the phrase “I love my iPhone 5” isbased on a recent software update to the iPhone. The pattern detectingmodule 614 transmits the analyzed data and/or the detected patterns tothe post-processing module 616. The post-processing module 616 mayprocess the data to a format that is desired for an external system.

The data and/or detected patterns may be transmitted to a qualitycontrol module 618. In one configuration, the data may be transmitteddirectly from the data analysis module 604 to the quality control module618. Likewise, the analyzed data from the data analysis module 604 maybypass either the pattern detecting module 614 or the post-processingmodule 616. The quality control module 618 may include a scoring module620 for assessing the accuracy of the results over time and as comparedto a human analyst. Additionally, the quality control module 618 mayinclude a logging module 622 for logging changes to the analysis of thedata over time and/or per iteration. The logging may be similar to asoftware version control function. Furthermore, the quality controlmodule 618 may include a labeling module 624 for labeling the data andthe datasets for later reference. The labeling may include timestamping, pattern stamping, topic labeling, or any other desired type oflabel (e.g., identification).

The results from the quality control are transmitted to the user profileand used for future analysis by the data analysis module 604. Theresults of the quality control and/or the analyzed data may be stored ina storage module 626. The storage module may also store the patternsdetected via the pattern detecting module 614. The results of thequality control and/or the analyzed data may also be displayed via adisplay module 628. The display module 628 may also display the patternsdetected via the pattern detecting module 614. Furthermore, the displaymodule may display a notification when the quality is below a qualitythreshold and/or when specific analyzed data is detected. Additionally,the analyzed data from the data analysis module 604 may be used togenerate notifications and/or open communication channels with usersbased on various criteria.

FIG. 7 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flowbetween different modules/means/components in an exemplary customercommunication module 700. The customer communication module may includemodules to both communicate with a customer and receive feedback from acustomer. In one configuration, the communication module may be aseparate from the feedback module.

As shown in FIG. 7, the customer communication module 700 may include acommunication generation module 702. The communication generation module702 may receive data from the analyzed results. Furthermore, thecommunication generation module 702 may receive information regarding aspecific user from a user profile module 704. The user information mayinclude information such as, the user's name, address, occupation,spoken languages, physical attributes, preferred communication method,and/or any other desired details. Additionally, the communicationgeneration module 702 may be coupled to a translating module 706 totranslate the received data based on the user profile. Furthermore, thecommunication generation module 702 may be coupled to a natural languageprocessor 714 to process any natural language data. That is, the naturallanguage processor 714 may analyze the received natural language anddetermine semantic information from the received natural language.

Based on the data from the analyzed results, the user profileinformation, and the processing by the translator 706 and/or the naturallanguage processor 714, the communication generation module 702determines a strategy for communicating with a user. In oneconfiguration, the strategy may be based on historical data. Historicaldata may include, but is not limited to, company records, sales records,and/or logged customer feedback. Once the strategy has been developed,the communication generation module 702 transmits the strategy to acommunication execution module 708 for communicating with the user viaone or more determined communication channels. The communicationchannels may include email, short message service (SMS), click-to-voice,interactive voice response (IVR), or any other desired form ofcommunication. In one configuration, the user specifies their desiredform of communication.

The customer communication module 700 may include a feedback module 710for receiving a communication from a customer. The communication may bein response to the communication initiated via the communicationexecution module 708. Alternatively, the communication may be receivedvia a portal, such as a webpage, twitter, message board, or any othercommunication channel. After receiving the communication from the user,the feedback module 710 transmits the data of the communication to thedata analysis module 712 to analyze the data. The data is analyzedsimilar to the results of a query (e.g., data analysis module 510). Thatis, the data analysis module 712 may be the same module as the dataanalysis module 510 of FIG. 5. In another configuration, the dataanalysis module 712 may be a different module as the data analysismodule 510 of FIG. 5; still, both modules would have similarfunctionality.

In one configuration, the data analysis module 712 may analyze the datafor pattern detection and/or natural language processing. The results ofthe analyzed data may be reported to the user of the data mining system.Furthermore, the results may be transmitted to the communicationgeneration module 702 for further refinement of the communicationgeneration.

FIG. 8 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flowbetween different modules/means/components in an exemplary customercommunication module 800. The customer communication module 800 mayinclude the feedback module 710 of FIG. 7. In one configuration, thecustomer communication module 800 of FIG. 8 is integrated with thecustomer communication module 700 of FIG. 7.

As shown in FIG. 8, the customer communication module 800 may include afeedback module 802 for receiving an input from a user via acommunication channel. The communication channel may include, but is notlimited to, SMS, email, web based communication, or a user-definedmethod. The feedback module 802 receives the communication, which may bereceived as a string of characters and processes the input to a desiredformat. The input is then transmitted to a parsing module 804 to beparsed based on lexicon sets and relationship maps, such as ontologysets, to classify the topic of the input.

After the string is parsed to determine the topic of the input, theparsed string is transmitted to a routing module 806 to be routed basedon the identified topic. That is, the routing module 806 may look up thetopic in a topic index so that the proper response is determined. Afterdetermining the proper index, the routing module 806 may transmit thetopic index to the response module 808. The response module 808determines the response from responses stored in a database 810. Forexample, if the string includes the words “appointment” and “schedule,”the routing module 806 may determine that an index is “scheduling anappointment” and transmits the index to the response module 808. In thisexample, the response module 808 may then communicate with the user toschedule an appointment.

The responses in the database 810 may be updated in real time based on amachine learning module 812. For example, an index of “scheduling anappointment” may be determined based on a string including the words“appointment” and “schedule.” Over time, the system may determine thatcommunicating a response to schedule an appointment is not theappropriate response. That is, based on customer feedback, or othertypes of feedback, the system may determine that the proper response isto provide the user with the schedule of their appointments, or anothertype of response.

After determining the proper response, the response module 808 transmitsthe response to an outbound communication module 814 to communicate theresponse to the user via a desired form of communication, such as, butnot limited to, email, SMS, or phone.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, the data mining systemmay provide an ability for managers or high level user to subdivide theanalysis into discrete, secure modules. A variety of permissions can beassigned to the analysts to control both the input and processed data.FIG. 9 illustrates a flow diagram for the levels of security.

For example, as shown in FIG. 9, a user designated as an administratormay have access to all of the data obtained via the system. Theadministrator may be referred to as a level 1 user. The administratormay provide specific permissions to level 2 users, such as a firstmanager (manager 1) and a second manager (manager 2). The managers mayhave the same access as the administrator or may have less access thanthe administrator. Furthermore, the levels of access for each managermay be the same as or different from each other. The managers may thencontrol the level of access by each data analyst (Analysts A-D). Thelevels of access for each analysis may be the same as or different fromeach other.

As previously discussed, extractors may be deployed on target datasources. The data extracted by the extractors may be transmitted to acloud-based infrastructure. The cloud-based infrastructure allows foron-demand scaling of resources and deployment of multiple extractorsthat may be processed in parallel.

The dynamic parallel computing structure may be used to process datawithout impeding speed. Specifically, the extractors and data analysismodules are dynamically configurable between sequential and parallelprocessing to improve efficiency.

FIG. 10A illustrates a typical sequential data extraction system. Asshown in FIG. 10A data sources (e.g., data source 1-data source n) aresequentially analyzed. More specifically, each record (e.g., record1-record n) of the data source is extracted one record at a time. Therecords to one record in a data source, such as a web page, databaseentry, etc. The speed of the extraction is limited by the speed of theprocessor(s). After extracting the record from a data source, the recordis written to a data base.

Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 10B, a sentiment analysis module may alsobe specified to process each extracted page. The sentiment analysismodule may also be a data analysis module. As shown in FIG. 10B, eachextracted data source (e.g., data source 1-data source n) issequentially analyzed by the sentiment analysis module. The sentimentanalysis module may receive an input from the lexicon module. Therecords processed by the sentiment analysis module may be output fromeach sentiment analysis module for further processing.

Although sequential processing is a very straightforward approach todata-mining and analysis, it is limited by processing speed. Forexample, various sub-processes may be slower than others, leading tobottlenecks in the system. Moreover, page extraction speed (X) may befaster than the sentiment analysis processing speed (Y), thus leading tobottlenecks.

In one configuration, as shown in FIG. 10C, scalable processingcapabilities are specified by deploying multiple instances/sub-sentriesto perform sentiment analysis processing in parallel. As shown in FIG.10C, multiple sentiment analysis modules may be deployed to analyze therecords of the extracted data in parallel. In FIG. 10C, the sentimentanalysis module may receive an input from the lexicon module. Therecords processed by the sentiment analysis module may be output fromeach sentiment analysis module for further processing.

In one example, based on the present configuration, if the extractionspeed is four times the sentiment analysis processing speed, 4sub-sentries may be deployed to perform the sentiment analysis inparallel. Additional sub-sentries may be deployed for buffering needs.In another configuration, if the sentiment analysis processing speed islimited by a large lexicon, sub-sentries may be deployed to process aportion of the lexicon, in parallel. The data mining system of theaspects of the present disclosure monitors the speed of eachsub-process, which is input into a controller that dynamically allocatesparallel processing instances on-demand.

The data mining system described in the aspects of the presentdisclosure may obtain large amounts of data with varying levels ofsensitivity. That is, some information may include customer sensitivedata or data that should only be viewed by individuals have varyingdegrees of clearance. Thus, it may be desirable to provide a datasecurity system that may be modified based on the procedures of a clientof the data mining system.

As previously discussed, the data mining system described in the variousaspects of the present disclosure may be used to mine and analyzevarious forms of data. Provided below are various examples of how thedata mining system may be used by governments, individuals,corporations, and/or any desired user. Of course, the use of the datamining system of the present application is not limited to the discussedexamples.

In one configuration, the data mining system may be used by a governmentand/or intelligence agency to monitor global hot spots. For example,governments and/or intelligence agencies may move through vast amountsand types of data, and in multiple languages to find patterns indicatingthe likelihood of domestic unrest, or the next terrorist attack.However, integrating and manually analyzing multiple data sources inreal time is technically challenging, time intensive, and marred byhuman bias, oversight, and even fraud.

The data mining system described in aspects of the present disclosurefinds, monitors, and summarizes the information needed to make the mostinformed decision in real time. Rather than relying on the manualsifting and analysis of intelligence, data mining system of the presentapplication may use a combination of rules engines and artificialintelligence schemes to detect threat patterns within large datasetsbefore problems reach a tipping point. Through iterations of searchesand search results, the data mining system learns to filter data noiseand refine queries to prioritize the most relevant results.

The data mining system described in aspects of the present disclosuremay determine political sentiment by sampling mass media conversationsin any language. Social media outlets, such as Twitter, may be monitoredvia the data extractors to identify user-defined events, shifts intraffic volume, and/or sentiment. The data mining system may reportfrequencies on topics, entities, and persons of interest, which maysignal the development of a physical event posing a risk to publicsecurity.

After identifying a user-defined event, the data mining system notifiesthe appropriate personnel in real time, communicating the event type,location, and optimal response strategy via a communication channel,such as email or SMS.

In addition to monitoring mass online conversations and their physicalimpact, in one configuration, the data mining system may also monitor aspecific individual. That is, the data mining system may analyze,verify, and cross check a person of interest's information, such astravel, financial, vital, and law enforcement records to identifypatterns indicative of fraud, criminal activity, or other threateningbehavior. The data mining system may then build a person of interestprofile based on verifiable intelligence determined from all availableinstitutional and open-source data feeds, including social media.

As an example, an intelligence agency may monitor sentiment of specifictopics and/or groups during. In this example, the intelligence agencywould have developed a query for monitoring sentiment of a topic/group.For example, the query may be “show me people upset with thegovernment.” In some cases, the query may be further refined to aspecific group and/or a specific location.

After the query has been selected, the query may be expanded based onlexical and rule-set based techniques to search structured andunstructured datasets for the keywords of the query. Specifically, theexpanded query may generate a topic of interest in addition tosub-topics. The expanded query may then be run on open-source data andclosed-source data. After the first pass of the search, the user mayexpand the topic of interest based on unintended search results.

That is, after the first pass of the search, the use may add additionaltopics and/or sub-topics in addition to narrowing the search to specificsources. After the search has been narrowed to a desired resultsthreshold, the data extractors are deployed to the selected data sourcesfor monitoring of the data sources.

As an example, the user may have searched for “Arab Spring” as a topicof interest with “unrest” as sub-topics. In this example, a search ofthe topic of interest and other sub-topics may have generated unintendedsearch results such as results related to social revolutions. Therefore,the user may determine to add “revolution” as sub-topics to a search.Additionally, other false positives may include topics that are notrelated to the topic of interest. For example, a search for a search of“Arab spring” and other sub-topics may have generated unintended searchresults such as “Arab spring water” or sources related to the springseason in the Middle East. Accordingly, sources related to these falsepositives may be excluded from further iterations of the search.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example of data from a data source that isidentified by a sentry. The sentry may identify a phrase from a messageand/or image posted on a data source, such as a message board and/or asocial media site. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 11, the sentry maydetect a post 1102 in data source, such as a message board. The post mayinclude an image 1104 and text 1106. In the example data of FIG. 11, theimage 1104 is an image of protestors with a billboard. The post 1102 mayhave been identified based on key words in the text 1106. For example,the key words may have been “strength” and “opposition.” Once the post1102 has been identified, the text 1106 may be analyzed by a dataanalysis module or a sentiment module. In one configuration, thesentiment is analyzed by the data analysis module 208 and/or a sentimentweight module 1108.

The sentiment analysis assigns weights (e.g., scores) to specific wordsor phrases that are extracted from a data source. As previouslydiscussed, positives words are assigned a value from 1 to X and negativewords are assigned a value from −1 to −Y. Positive words refer to wordsthat indicate a positive sentiment, such as “good,” “happy,” etc.Negative words refer to words that indicate a negative sentiment, suchas “hate,” “angry,” etc. The more positive or negative the word, thehigher the value. For example, the positive word “good” may be assigneda value of 1 while the positive word “fantastic” may be assigned a valueof 3. The value assignment may be set by the user or pre-defined basedon a specific vernacular.

In the exemplary data shown in FIG. 11, the key words in the text 1106may be analyzed by the sentiment weight module 1108. The sentimentweight module 1108 may assign a sentiment weight to the words and/orphrases extracted from the text 1106. In this example, the words“opposition” and “strength” are both given a weight of −1. Thus, basedon the analysis of the sentiment weight module 1108 a user and/or thedata mining system may determine that the detected post 1102 carries anegative sentiment. The total sentiment weight for the extracted datamay be the sum of all sentiment weight. In this example, the totalsentiment weight is −2 (e.g., sum of “opposition” sentiment weight (−1)and “strength” sentiment weight (−1).

In one configuration, after determining a total sentiment weight forextracted data, the data analysis module, user, and/or data miningsystem may determine whether to proceed with a second pass for sentimentanalysis.

Specifically, in one configuration, for the second pass, the dataanalysis module performs a more formal computational linguistic analysisto dive deeper into the textual opinions. The second pass may use anatural language processing toolsets on the native script to process anddetermine sentiment including lemmatization (root-finding), semanticfeature analysis, statistical processing to discover patterns, etc. Inone aspect of the disclosure, linguistic patterns are specified topopulate the topic and modifier tables and create custom lexicons. Afterthe first pass, the system can then reprocess the opinionated textstring (OTS) with the improved tables and increase accuracy. Theopinionated text string refers to the set of words where the authorholds the opinion.

In the exemplary data shown in FIG. 11, during the second pass, the sign1110 in the image 1104 may be analyzed to determine the sentiment of thetext in the sign 1110. In this example, the key words of the sign, suchas, “change,” “constitutions,” and “tyrants,” may be given sentimentweights. In one configuration, after determining the total sentimentweight from the second pass, the data analysis module determines toextract the user info for the post for further analysis. In thisconfiguration, the data analysis module determines that the userinformation should be extracted when the total sentiment weight is abovea threshold. The thresholds may be set for positive and/or negativesentiment weights.

The user information may be extracted via an information extractionmodule 1112. The information extraction module 1112 may be part of thedata analysis module, sentiment weight module 1108, and/or a distinctmodule. The information that is extracted may include the username,actual name, age, location, and/or any other information related to theuser that posted the data. In one configuration the extractedinformation may be used for a new query to follow the user that postedthe data.

It should be noted that although FIG. 11 shows the data in English, theaspects of the present disclosure may be applied to data of anylanguage.

In one configuration, after the sentiment of the data is analyzed,quality control is specified for the results of the sentiment. That is,the data and the sentiment weights may be transmitted to a qualitycontrol module. A user may review the data transmitted to the qualitycontrol module to determine whether the proper sentiment weights werespecified for the extracted data. Specifically, the user may determinewhether the sentiment analysis missed specific words, gave weights tofalse positives, and/or applied the wrong weights to specific words.Based on the user analysis, the sentiment analysis may be provided witha quality control value, such as a percentage.

Furthermore, based on the on the user analysis, the lexicon modulesand/or sentiment analysis modules may be updated to correct missedwords, false positives, incorrect analysis, and/or any other detectederrors. After updating the lexicon modules and/or sentiment analysismodules, the sentiment analysis may be subsequently performed. Theresults of the subsequent sentiment analysis may be further analyzed bya user. The iterations of the sentiment analysis may be performed untilthe quality control value is equal to or greater than a threshold.

As shown in FIG. 11, in one configuration, the data mining system may bespecified to determine political sentiment. Still, in anotherconfiguration, the data mining system of the present application may beused for customer service purposes and/or revenue enhancement services.In one configuration, a revenue enhancement service (RES) platform is anend-to-end big solution that generates actionable intelligence andexecutes individually targeted outreach strategies. The RES platform mayuse predictive analytics, natural language processing, and automatedengagement capabilities, to increase revenue by improving sales,identifying emerging trends, and or streamlining customer interaction.

Consumers may generate large amounts of data that indicate how theyspend, what they desire, and where and how they engage. In oneconfiguration, the data mining system may continuously monitors thecustomer information from data sources, such as social media, web feeds,customer feedback, internal company databases, and proprietary datasilos. In this configuration, the data mining system extracts attributesfor each customer, such as financial profiles and retail history, tosocial influences and expressed interests. The RES continues to monitorand analyze the data for product sentiment, consumer patterns, andpurchasing behaviors to build customer profiles and generate marketintelligence in real-time. Using this intelligence, the customer of thedata mining system may determine what are the most likely products andservices that each customer is looking for as well as ways to engagewith that particular customer.

In one configuration, based on the data retrieved via the data miningsystem, a company may improve product placement or determine designtrends. Moreover, the customer may communicate with the company throughtheir choice of interaction medium (e.g., SMS, email, voice, avatarchat, or a combination thereof) so that the customer may ask questions,resolve issues, and express satisfaction/dissatisfaction. Furthermore,the RES platform may determine customer profiles as well as customersentiment so customer communications may be accurately routed for theappropriate response. That is, companies may improve outreach to engagewith customers knowing who they are, how they feel and what they need.

FIG. 12 illustrates an exemplary flow chart 1200 for determining usersentiment based on an aspect of the present disclosure. As shown in FIG.12, at block 1202 an individual may post data on a data source, such asa public forum or social media. In this example, the data is anindication of a phone user's sentiment for their phone service,specifically, “my phone service is terrible.” At block 1204 an extractorthat is monitoring the data source determines that the data post ofblock 1202 matches the query, therefore, the data extractor extracts thedata and transmits the data to the data analysis module. At block 1206 adata analysis module analyzes the data to determine the sentiment of thepost. At block 1208 the data analysis module outputs the sentiment word,such as “terrible,” and the sentiment weight, such as “−1”. Based on theanalysis of the data analysis module, a customer communication modulemay determine an appropriate response. The response may be determinedbased on the determined sentiment.

In yet another configuration, the data mining system may be used todetermine fraud, waste, and/or abuse of a system. In one configuration,the data mining system uses pattern detection based on historical dataand correlating factors in datasets to determine potential fraud, waste,and/or abuse of a system. For example, the data mining system may beused in a health care or insurance system to analyze for fraud and/orabuse.

In one configuration, the data mining system is specified to analyzereported claims. The contents of the claim, such as user information,claim type, injury type, etc. are queried at data sources. The datasources may include a health provider data base, subscriber data base,and/or affiliate data base. The query is specified to determine whetherthe submitted claim has specific fraud characteristics. If it isdetermined that a claim has fraud characteristics, the data miningsystem may take appropriate actions, such as notifying an investigation,denying the claim, and/or flagging the claim for further monitoring. Inone configuration, when a claim does not have fraud characteristics, theclaim may still be flagged so that the individual that made the claim ismonitored for future activity.

In one configuration, the data mining system is specified to query oneor more data sources for various types of data, such as financial data,operational data, and/or human resources data. For example, one of thedata sources may be an operations center. The query may be specified toextract data for further analysis. Thus, the query may be specified tofor updates and/or additions to all data in a data source or specificdata in the data source. In one configuration, the data that matches thequery is extracted and aggregated to a pre-defined format. That is, thedata in the data source(s) may be in various proprietary formats.Therefore, it is desirable to aggregate the extracted data to apre-defined format. Furthermore, after aggregating the extracted data,the data may be analyzed. The analysis may be performed via a dataanalysis module, such the data analysis module 604.

The analysis may use machine learning, a user generated system, lexiconbased matching, natural language processing, and/or predictiveprocessing to analyze the data. The analysis may detect patterns, findkey works and/or indexes, determine a probability for an occurrence ofan event, and/or perform other types of analysis. In one configuration,the analyzed data may be visualized. The visualization may be asentiment heat map 308, bar graph 302, the pie chart 304, plot graph306, and/or any other type of visualization.

Finally, in one configuration, based on the analyzed data, the datamining system may take appropriate actions, such as generating anactionable alert. As an, an actionable alert may be generated when amaximum allowed expense for a cost center is exceeds a threshold. Forexample, a threshold of a maximum expense of $1 million dollars permonth is set, and the actual expense data is $1.2 million dollars. Inthis example, the cost center Manager will be notified that thethreshold has been passed. The Manager may then take appropriate actionsbased on the alert.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, the data mining systemis specified to improve a customer's travel experience. For example, aquery may be generated to query one or more data sources for informationrelated to traveling. The information may be travel information prior totraveling, during traveling, and/or after traveling. In oneconfiguration, the query is related to itinerary changes, local deals,expenses accrued in relation to traveling, corporate travel policy,and/or other travel related information. The corporate travel policy maybe information for budget caps, preferred hotels, preferred airlines,and/or other information related to corporate travel.

The data source(s) may include a traveler's calendar, a database ofdeals, a traveler's rewards account, enterprise data, credit cardinformation, the traveler's location, and/or any other data source thatincludes travel information. The rewards account may be an account suchas a frequent flyer account. In this configuration, the data miningsystem generates an actionable alert when new data and/or a change indata match the query.

As an example, once a traveler has booked a trip (e.g., hotel and/orflight) to a destination, a query is generated to monitor the one ormore data sources. In this example, if there is a change to anitinerary, an actionable alert may be generated for the traveler. Thechange in itinerary may be detected based on a change to the traveler'scalendar, a change in a rewards account, a change in a credit cardtransaction, and/or a change any other data source that includes travelinformation.

As another example, prior to embarking on the planned travel, the querymay determine local deals based on the traveler's destination. The localdeals may be determined from one or more data sources that include localdeals. Furthermore, an actionable alert may be generated for thetraveler if a local deal is found. As another example, the local dealsmay be determined while the traveler is at a specific destination. Inthis example, the local deals may be determined using a data source thatincludes the traveler's location as well as a data source that includeslocal deals.

In yet another example, after travel has been booked, a traveler may benotified that their booked hotel, airline, rental car, and/or othertravel related item is no longer qualified by a corporate travel policy.The notification may also indicate that travel expenses accrued priorand/or during travel have exceeded the corporate travel limit.Furthermore, in one example, the query may search expenses from a creditcard data source and/or other financial data source to determine travelrelated expenses. The data mining system may then generate and submit anexpense report based on the matched query.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for information regarding bullying. For example,the query may search for specific words, phrases, images, and/or videosrelated to bullying in a bullying report database and/or social media.The bullying reports may be submitted by victims and/or witnesses. Thereports may include a description, audio, and/or video of an incident.

In this configuration, an actionable alert is generated when a queryidentifies a new and/or updated bullying incident. The actionable alertmay be transmitted to authorities, such as school officials, parents,and/or police.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for a user defined topic of interest. The datasource(s) may include surveys, feedback forms, user comments, and/or anytype of data. For example, the data source may be a survey data sourceand/or social media. The query may be specified to search for updatesand/or additions to all data in a data source or specific data in thedata source. After extracting the data, the data may be analyzed. Theanalysis may be performed via a data analysis module, such the dataanalysis module 604.

In one configuration, the analysis is specified to determine publicsentiment. Of course, aspects of the present disclosure are not limitedto determining public sentiment and the analysis may be performed todetermine any metric. The analysis may use machine learning, a usergenerated system, lexicon based matching, natural language processing,and/or predictive processing to analyze the data. The analysis maydetect patterns, find key works and/or indexes, determine a probabilityfor an occurrence of an event, and/or perform other types of analysis.The results of the analysis may be communicated to a user for furtherprocessing.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for financial transactions. The data source(s) mayinclude a bank account and/or a credit card account. The query may bespecified to identify updates and/or additions to the financialinformation. The financial information may be in different formats. Forexample, one format may be transactional data, such as a postedtransaction. Another format may be non-transactional data or userprovided data, such as an image of a receipt or check. A match to thequery may result in an actionable alert to a customer. Additionally, amatch to the query may result in an expense report being generated forthe financial transaction.

As an example, the user may set a query to determine when financialtransactions at a coffee shop exceed a pre-defined budget. The query maythen monitor one or more of the user's financial data sources. When atransaction at a coffee shop is posted, the query receives a match andincrements a variable with the amount of transaction. Accordingly, ifthe variable is greater than the pre-defined budget, an alert may besent to the user.

As an example, the user may set a query to determine when a new image isadded to a financial data source. The query may then monitor one or moreof the user's financial data sources for a new image. When an image,such as an image of a check or an image of a receipt is posted, thequery receives a match. In this example, data from the image isextracted and the amount may be incremented to a ledger and/or anexpense report may be generated based on the extracted information.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to monitorone or more data sources for a user's financial transactions. Spendingpatterns may be determined from the financial transactions via a dataanalysis module, such the data analysis module 604. Additionally, thedata mining system is configured to monitor one or more data sources fordeals, such as coupons, deals, rewards, and/or other incentives forexisting and/or potential customers.

In one example, the data mining system may determine a deal based on anidentified spending pattern. For example, based on a query for spendingpatterns, the data mining system identifies that a user has increasedspending at a specific coffee merchant. Based on the identified coffeespending pattern, the data mining system may query the deal datasource(s) to identify deals related to the coffee spending pattern. Thequery may identify existing deals and/or the query may continuouslymonitor the data source to determine when a deal is identified.Furthermore, once a deal is identified, an actionable alert may begenerated for the user.

In another example, the query may identify a new deal from a merchant.Furthermore, after determining the new deal, the query may then monitorthe spending patterns of users to identify potential targets for thedeal. Once a target (e.g., user) for the deal is identified, anactionable alert may be generated for the user.

In yet another example, the query may identify a user's spendingpatterns. Furthermore, based on the spending patterns, a user may earnpoints to be used for deals, trips, and/or merchandise. The pointsand/or spending patterns may be updated when new financial transactionsare identified by the query.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for user information as well as other financialinformation. The financial information may include public informationand/or user received information, such as mortgage rates, interestrates, housing prices, location data, a user's financial data (e.g.,credit score, account balances, income, etc.). The user's financial datamay be information received via application forms, such as a loan orcredit application, and/or tax forms. The user information may alsoinclude the user's location (e.g., current location, business location,and/or residence). In response to identifying data via the query, anactionable alert may be generated to a user. The alert may suggest avendor/service and/or a path to a goal. Vendors/services may includeloan vendors, credit vendors, and/or other vendors of financial relatedservices.

For example, the alert may suggest a low interest credit card based onthe user's credit score and account balances. As another example, thealert may suggest a service to repair a credit score based on the user'scredit score. In yet another example, a path to a goal may includesuggestions for how to save money in view of current spending patternsto reach a user-defined goal or a system suggested goal.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for user information as well as other healthrelated information. The health related information may includelocations for health care providers, a user's insurance information,and/or a user's health records. The user information may include theuser's location (e.g., current location, business location, and/orresidence). In response to identifying data via the query, an actionablealert may be generated to a user.

The alert may suggest a nearby health care provider that is approved byinsurance. The alert may also suggest updated insurance information.Furthermore, the alert may include an application for enrollment inhealth plans. In one configuration, the information in the applicationis pre-populated with user information obtain from one or more of thedata sources.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for customer service issues and/or a user definedtopic of interest. The data source may be one or more data sources thatinclude knowledge centers, FAQs, user comments, or any type of data. Thequery may be specified to search for updates and/or additions to alldata in a data source or specific data in the data source. Afterextracting the data, the data may be analyzed for sentiment, trends, orother analysis. The analysis may be performed via a data analysismodule, such the data analysis module 604.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources for data that is to be processed for summarization(e.g., abstraction). For example, the data may include documents and/orimages. The data may be unstructured (e.g., not in machine readableformat). In this configuration, when the data has been identified, thedata is converted to a machine readable format and summarized. Forexample, optical character recognition may be applied to convert thedata into structured data. Furthermore, the summarized data may beavailable for further analysis. The summarized data may be referred toas abstracted data.

As an example, the one or more data sources may include leaseinformation. In this example, when an update to an existing lease or anew lease is provided, the query extracts the lease and the informationis converted to a machine readable format. Furthermore, after theconversion, the lease may be summarized. Additionally, the summary maythen be available for further queries or analysis.

In another example, the one or more data sources may include legaldocuments, such as a court decisions. In this example, when a new courtdecision has been entered, the query extracts the court decision and theinformation is converted to a machine readable format. Furthermore,after the conversion, the court decision may be summarized.Additionally, the summary may then be available for further queries oranalysis.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query oneor more data sources that include a user's location, device information,as well as a user's contact preferences. The information may include auser/device GPS location, wireless device information, a radio accesstechnology (RAT) the device is connected to (e.g., connected to WiFi orLTE), a cell tower the device is connected to, a SIM card used by thedevice, and/or other communication related information. In thisconfiguration, the information obtained from the data sources may beused for virtual contact card as well as contact rules based on a user'spreference. That is, when an update or new information is provided for afirst user's location, device information, and/or the first user'scontact preferences, an alert may be generated to one or more secondusers. The alert may inform the second user regarding the first user'scontact preferences. The alert may be transmitted to the second user'sdevice, such that the second user is not identified that the firstuser's contact information has been updated. The alert may also be sentto one or more of the first user's devices to update outgoingcommunication rules.

In one example, a query may be generated to monitor what type of RAT afirst user's device is connected to. Furthermore, a data source mayreceive an update indicating that the first user's device is onlyconnected to WiFi. Based on the update, an alert is sent to one or moresecond users. The alert may indicate that until further notice, thefirst user should only be contacted via voice over IP (VoIP) or otherInternet based communications. Additionally or alternatively, in thisexample, when the query determines that the first user is only connectedto WiFi, an alert may be generated for the first user's device so thatthe first user's device may only perform outgoing communications viaVoIP or other Internet based communications.

In another example, a query may be generated to monitor a user'scalendar. In this example, when a new calendar entry or updated calendarentry is determined from the query, the user's contact preference may bealerted to the user or other users. For example, a first user may updatetheir calendar to include a business meeting during a specific data.Based on the updated calendar, an alert is transmitted to one or moresecond users to update the first user's contact preference. For example,the first user may only desire to receive SMS messages during themeeting. Thus, if a second user attempts to contact the first userduring the scheduled meeting, the second user may only be able tocontact the first user using SMS based on the updated contactpreference.

In one configuration, the data mining system is configured to query datasources for health related information, secure messaging, and/orscheduling information. For example, the information may include aphysician's schedule, such that an alert is generated when a new orupdated schedule is provided to the data source. As another, in ahealthcare environment, the queried data queried may include contactinformation, health records, and/or a physician's schedule. An alert maybe generated, when a new schedule or an update to a physician's scheduleis received in the database. Alerts may also be generated upon the entryof a new communication in the database.

As previously discussed, according to aspects of the present disclosurethe search terms of the query may be expanded. In the above mentionedexamples, the search terms may be expanded if desired. Additionally,according to aspects of the present disclosure, in some cases, one ormore data sources from the multiple data sources are selected whenresults of the query are greater than or equal to an accuracythresholds. In the above mentioned examples, the selection of one ormore data sources based on the accuracy threshold may be performed asdesired. Still, the above mentioned examples are not limited toexpanding the query and/or selecting one or more data based on theaccuracy threshold.

Those of skill would further appreciate that the various illustrativelogical blocks, modules, circuits, and algorithm steps described inconnection with the disclosure herein may be implemented as electronichardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearlyillustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, variousillustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have beendescribed above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether suchfunctionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon theparticular application and design constraints imposed on the overallsystem. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality invarying ways for each particular application, but such implementationdecisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from thescope of the present disclosure.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, and circuits describedin connection with the disclosure herein may be implemented or performedwith a general-purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), anapplication specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmablegate array (FPGA) or other programmable logic device, discrete gate ortransistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combinationthereof designed to perform the functions described herein. Ageneral-purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in thealternative, the processor may be any conventional processor,controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also beimplemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combinationof a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one ormore microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other suchconfiguration.

The steps of a method or algorithm described in connection with thedisclosure herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in a softwaremodule executed by a processor, or in a combination of the two. Asoftware module may reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory,EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, hard disk, a removable disk, aCD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. Anexemplary storage medium is coupled to the processor such that theprocessor can read information from, and write information to, thestorage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integralto the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in anASIC. The ASIC may reside in a user terminal. In the alternative, theprocessor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components in auser terminal.

In one or more exemplary designs, the functions described may beimplemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof.If implemented in software, the functions may be stored on ortransmitted over as one or more instructions or code on acomputer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computerstorage media and communication media including any medium thatfacilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. Astorage media may be any available media that can be accessed by ageneral purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and notlimitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM,CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or othermagnetic storage devices, or any other medium that can be used to carryor store desired program code means in the form of instructions or datastructures and that can be accessed by a general-purpose orspecial-purpose computer, or a general-purpose or special-purposeprocessor. Also, any connection is properly termed a computer-readablemedium. For example, if the software is transmitted from a website,server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable,twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wireless technologiessuch as infrared, radio, and microwave, then the coaxial cable, fiberoptic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such asinfrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium.Disk and disc, as used herein, includes compact disc (CD), laser disc,optical disc, digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk and blu-ray discwhere disks usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproducedata optically with lasers. Combinations of the above should also beincluded within the scope of computer-readable media.

The previous description of the disclosure is provided to enable anyperson skilled in the art to make or use the disclosure. Variousmodifications to the disclosure will be readily apparent to thoseskilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may beapplied to other variations without departing from the spirit or scopeof the disclosure. Thus, the disclosure is not intended to be limited tothe examples and designs described herein but is to be accorded thewidest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosedherein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of analyzing data, comprising:generating, by an entity, a query based at least in part on a topic ofinterest; executing the query on a plurality of data sources, at leastone of the plurality of data sources comprising at least one offinancial data, operational data, human resources data, production data,information technology data, or a combination thereof; selecting, by theentity, a data source from the plurality of data sources for monitoringbased on a correlation between the data source and the topic ofinterest, the correlation determined based on results of the executedquery; monitoring, based on a set schedule, the data source for matchesto the query to extract data from the data source when at least anupdate to stored data matches the query, newly added data matches thequery, or a combination thereof; extracting data from the data sourcewhen at least an update to stored data matches the query, newly addeddata matches the query, or a combination thereof; determining anextraction rate for extracting the data, the extraction rate indicatingan amount of the data that is extracted over a first time period;determining a first processing rate for processing the extracted datawith a number of parallel processors, the first processing rateindicating an amount of extracted data that is processed over a secondtime period; dynamically adjusting the number of parallel processors foranalyzing the extracted data based on the extraction rate to obtain asecond processing rate that is greater than the first processing rate;analyzing, with the parallel processors, the extracted data to determineat least one of a sentiment, an index, a pattern, or a combinationthereof; establishing a two-way communication channel, between at leastthe entity that selected the data source for monitoring and a userdevice of a user that provided data to the data source, based on theanalysis of the extracted data; transmitting, from the entity via thetwo-way communication channel, a first message directed to the userdevice based on the analysis of the extracted data; and receiving, fromthe user device via the two-way communication channel, a second messagein response to the first message directed to the user device.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising visualizing at least one of theextracted data, the analyzed data, or a combination thereof.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: refining search terms of thequery based at least in part on the executed query, and in which themonitoring is performed to monitor for matches to a refined query. 4.The method of claim 1, in which the plurality of data sources includeopen-source data sources that are publically available and closed-sourcedata sources that are not publically accessible.
 5. The method of claim1, in which the query is a natural language query, and furthercomprising translating the query to a system understood language.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising expanding search terms of thequery to include at least one of relevant terms, misspellings, or acombination thereof; and in which the data source is selected when thecorrelation is greater than or equal to an accuracy threshold.
 7. Themethod of claim 6, in which expanding the query comprises expanding thesearch terms to include at least misspellings, synonyms, sub-topics,antonyms, or a combination thereof.
 8. The method of claim 1, in whichthe monitoring comprises deploying extractors to each data source, anumber of extractors being dynamic based at least in part on a trafficvolume of each data source.
 9. The method of claim 1, in which at leastone of the plurality of data sources is an operations center or anoperations branch.
 10. The method of claim 1, in which the two-waycommunication channel comprises at least one of short message service(SMS), click-to-voice, interactive voice response (IVR), e-mail, phone,Internet protocol, message board, social media, digital communication,or a combination thereof.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprisinganalyzing, by an entity user corresponding to the entity, the results ofthe query in view of the topic of interest and a sub-topic of interest;and determining, by the entity user, the correlation between the datasource and the topic of interest based on the analysis of the results ofthe query.
 12. An apparatus for analyzing data, the apparatuscomprising: a memory; and at least one processor coupled to the memory,the at least one processor being configured: to generate, by an entity,a query based at least in part on a topic of interest; to execute thequery on a plurality of data sources, at least one of the plurality ofdata sources comprising at least one of financial data, operationaldata, human resources data, production data, information technologydata, or a combination thereof to select, by the entity, a data sourcefrom the plurality of data sources for monitoring based on a correlationbetween the data source and the topic of interest, the correlationdetermined based on results of the executed query; to monitor, based ona set schedule, the data source for matches to the query to extract datafrom the data source when at least an update to stored data matches thequery, newly added data matches the query, or a combination thereof; toextract data from the data source when at least an update to stored datamatches the query, newly added data matches the query, or a combinationthereof; to determine an extraction rate for extracting the data, theextraction rate indicating an amount of the data that is extracted overa first time period; to determine a first processing rate for processingthe extracted data with a number of parallel processors, the firstprocessing rate indicating an amount of extracted data that is processedover a second time period; to dynamically adjust the number of parallelprocessors for analyzing the extracted data based on the extraction rateto obtain a second processing rate that is greater than the firstprocessing rate; to analyze, with the parallel processors, the extracteddata to determine at least one of a sentiment, an index, a pattern, or acombination thereof; to establish a two-way communication channel,between at least the entity that selected the data source for monitoringand a user device of a user that provided data to the data source, basedon the analysis of the extracted data; to transmit, from the entity viathe two-way communication channel, a first message directed to the userdevice based on the analysis of the extracted data; and to receive, fromthe user device via the two-way communication channel, a second messagein response to the first message directed to the user device.
 13. Theapparatus of claim 12, in which the at least one processor is furtherconfigured to refine search terms of the query based at least in part onthe executed query, and in which the monitoring is performed to monitorfor matches to a refined query.
 14. The apparatus of claim 12, in whichthe plurality of data sources include open-source data sources that arepublically available and closed-source data sources that are notpublically accessible.
 15. The apparatus of claim 12, in which at leastone of the plurality of data sources is an operations center or anoperations branch.
 16. The apparatus of claim 12, in which the at leastone processor is further configured to deploy extractors to each datasource, a number of extractors being dynamic based at least in part on atraffic volume of each data source.
 17. The apparatus of claim 12, inwhich the two-way communication channel comprises at least one of shortmessage service (SMS), click-to-voice, interactive voice response (IVR),e-mail, phone, Internet protocol, message board, social media, digitalcommunication, or a combination thereof.
 18. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium having program code recorded thereon foranalyzing data, the program code being executed by a processor andcomprising: program code to generate, by an entity, a query based atleast in part on a topic of interest; program code to execute the queryon a plurality of data sources, at least one of the plurality of datasources comprising at least one of financial data, operational data,human resources data, production data, information technology data, or acombination thereof; program code to select, by the entity, a datasource from the plurality of data sources for monitoring based on acorrelation between the data source and the topic of interest, thecorrelation determined based on results of the executed query; programcode to monitor, based on a set schedule, the data source for matches tothe query to extract data from the data source when at least an updateto stored data matches the query, newly added data matches the query, ora combination thereof; program code to extract data from the data sourcewhen at least an update to stored data matches the query, newly addeddata matches the query, or a combination thereof; program code todetermine an extraction rate for extracting the data, the extractionrate indicating an amount of the data that is extracted over a firsttime period; program code to determine a first processing rate forprocessing the extracted data with a number of parallel processors, thefirst processing rate indicating an amount of extracted data that isprocessed over a second time period; program code to dynamically adjustthe number of parallel processors for analyzing the extracted data basedon the extraction rate to obtain a second processing rate that isgreater than the first processing rate; program code to analyze, withthe parallel processors, the extracted data to determine at least one ofa sentiment, an index, a pattern, or a combination thereof; program codeto establish a two-way communication channel, between at least theentity that selected the data source for monitoring and a user device ofa user that provided data to the data source, based on the analysis ofthe extracted data; program code to transmit, from the entity via thetwo-way communication channel, a first message directed to the userdevice based on the analysis of the extracted data; and program code toreceive, from the user device via the two-way communication channel, asecond message in response to the first message directed to the userdevice.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, inwhich at least one of the plurality of data sources is an operationscenter or an operations branch.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readablemedium of claim 18, in which the two-way communication channel comprisesat least one of short message service (SMS), click-to-voice, interactivevoice response (IVR), e-mail, phone, Internet protocol, message board,social media, digital communication, or a combination thereof.